Tsar Putin brings in anti-terrorism law

The Russian Empire has now passed a range of new ‘anti-terrorism‘ laws that which might just make Skype, Gmail and Facebook illegal unless they give information to the government. The new laws themselves require service operators to store Russian user data on servers which are physically located in the country itself.

Tsar Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin wants to access to this data whenever he feels like and that means that the servers to be located in Russia itself. Since Russia has a strange habit of expanding its borders every couple of years, they may as well be located in Poland, Moldova or Estonia. The move which will provide the Russian government with an even greater degree of control when it comes to Internet usage.

According to Yandex, a Russian based search engine, the adoption of the law will be another step towards the strengthening of state control over the Internet in Russia. This will be terrible for anyone trying to set up an internet business. It also means that Tsar Putin has the same controls over the web which has over the traditional media.

Russia has never really been a big fan of western IT outfits and it is clear that it wants them to do what they are told or leave. To be fair he is only doing what the EU is planning to stop the NSA from snooping on people, but the clause were he can snuffle data at will is not part of the European plan.

In related news a Russian foundry (proper foundry, not a chip plant) has issued a set of commemorative silver and gold coins. At 1kg apiece, they are the perfect way of thanking the Tsar for his heroic seizure and annexation of Crimea.